If writers write, what am I?

In case you didn’t notice, I haven’t written much lately. I have no excuse, only that deep sense of depression and guilt that haunts procrastinators in denial. I’m bothered by the gaps because I know a few things, namely, it’s possible to be a writer without being published, read, or recognized. That’s the good news. But it’s impossible to be a writer without writing. I’m on the verge of refunding my writer’s credentials — those very basic ones that hinged on simply being a person who writes.

I’m not avoiding writing. I wake up each day lusting for it. I dream of it: that solitary couple of hours when it’s just me, my computer, and language. Those mornings don’t come. The nights are stuffed, and the words vanish into vague ideas of something I might write about on a day that exists only in imaginary retirement (see the last post). Someday.

There’s still fight left in me. Ideas are coming and sometimes a phrase or word forces me to the nearest scrap of paper, begging to be “jotted,” hoping to be typed, transcribed, or emblazoned in memory. At my most primitive level, I’m still a writer. You believe me, right?

Writers write. A little. Crappy little scraps. Something. And so this little blurb, isn’t much. But it’s ideas and words crammed into some form. It’s writing. It’s my attempt to keep my credentials. I am still a writer.